Lobbying for Cryptoprivacy, non-U.S.

>I have shied away from any "political" action against Clipper because I am
>unsure how a Canadian can help...

Non-U.S. citizens can lobby hard to get all phones containing
key-escrow (aka wiretap) chips banned in your country.  You have a 
very good argument: do y'all want Yankee spooks listening in on your 
phone calls?  Make sure the following specifics are included in the 
legislation:

* Try to get key escrow banned *in general*, instead of just from foreign
countries.  In smaller countries this will be easier since its doubtful
small governments can set up a spook/chip-maker axis to rival the
NSA/Mykotronx/VLSI axis in the U.S.  In fact probably only the U.S.,
cooperating major European countries and Japan have such a capability.

* Be careful with the wording of the legislation; be sure to
specify *key-escrow* and not any other forms of cryptography.

* If political feasible the legislation should specifically encourage
private, commercial forms of cryptography.

Jim Hart
jhart@agora.rain.com

* Try to get key escrow banned *in general*, instead of just from foreign
	 countries.  In smaller countries this will be easier since its doubtful
	 small governments can set up a spook/chip-maker axis to rival the
	 NSA/Mykotronx/VLSI axis in the U.S.  In fact probably only the U.S.,
	 cooperating major European countries and Japan have such a capability.

	 * Be careful with the wording of the legislation; be sure to
	 specify *key-escrow* and not any other forms of cryptography.

This is extremely dangerous.  Much of legislation is compromise.  Any
such bill is probably so close to a bill that outlaws cryptography (or
could be interpreted as a precedent for such a bill) that the risks
are probably far greater than the rewards.  The strategy the Eric
Hughes proposed sounds much better.

>>* Be careful with the wording of the legislation; be sure to
>>  specify *key-escrow* and not any other forms of cryptography.

>This is extremely dangerous.  Much of legislation is compromise.  Any
>such bill is probably so close to a bill that outlaws cryptography (or
>could be interpreted as a precedent for such a bill) 

The point Dean makes is important.  You want a positive right for
individuals to use cryptography in any form, not just a 'negative
right' which restricts government from creating key registration
requirements.  Such a positive right will _a fortiori_ exclude key
escrow systems, and that's what you want.  You want to make sure that
all _restrictions_ on cryptography are disallowed, that there are no
_restricted_ forms of cryptography.  The point is subtle, but
profound.  Both techniques get rid of key registration, but one is a
restriction on cryptography and the other is not.

There is another point to remember about constitutional democracies.
That which the legislature may do, the legislature may also undo.  The
level at which the prohibition against cryptography restrictions is
appropriate is at the constitutional level.  A constitutional
provision binds the government; lesser solutions are less effective,
even when they should be sought out as intermediaries.

At the first CFP conference, Lawrence Tribe made this point extremely
well, that the fundamental right of citizens should be invariant to
technology.

Eric

> At the first CFP conference, Lawrence Tribe made this point extremely
> well, that the fundamental right of citizens should be invariant to
> technology.

That's surprising.  Tribe publicly peddles the leftist arguments for gun
control, including the one that the Founding Fathers never intended the
Second Amendment for weapons of today's lethality.  I wonder why he
doesn't see the parallel.
-- 
					Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>

Eric S. Raymond says:
> > At the first CFP conference, Lawrence Tribe made this point extremely
> > well, that the fundamental right of citizens should be invariant to
> > technology.
> 
> That's surprising.  Tribe publicly peddles the leftist arguments for gun
> control, including the one that the Founding Fathers never intended the
> Second Amendment for weapons of today's lethality.  I wonder why he
> doesn't see the parallel.

Because he's a liberal, not a libertarian.

Perry